On television, Wal-Mart employees are smiling women delighted with their jobs. But reality is another story. In 2000, Betty Dukes, a fifty-two-year-old black woman in Pittsburg, California, became the lead plaintiff in Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, a class action, representing 1.6 million women. In her explosive investigation of this historic lawsuit, journalist Liza Featherstone reveals how Wal-Mart, a self-styled "family-oriented," Christian company: Deprives women (but not men) of the training they need to advance. Relegates women to lower-paying jobs like selling baby clothes, reserving the more lucrative positions for men. Inflicts punitive demotions on employees who object to discrimination. Exploits Asian women in its sweatshops in Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth. Featherstone goes on to reveal the creative solutions that Wal-Mart workers around the country have found, like fighting for unions, living-wage ordinances, and childcare options. Selling Women Short combines the personal stories of these employees with superb investigative journalism to show why women who work these low-wage jobs are getting a raw deal, and what they are doing about it. A new preface to the paperback edition will reflect on Wal-Mart's response to this lawsuit and its critics-including this one.

Now that Wal-Mart has conquered the US, can it conquer the world? As Wal-Mart World shows, the corporation is certainly trying. For a number of years, Wal-Mart has been the largest company in the United States. Now, though, it is the largest company in the world. Its global labor practices and outsourcing strategies represent for many what contemporary economic globalization is all about. But Wal-Mart is not standing still, and is opening up stores everywhere. From Germany to Beijing to Mexico City to Tokyo, more than a billion shoppers can now hunt for bargains at a Wal-Mart superstore. Wal-Mart World is the first book to look at this incredibly important phenomenon in global perspective, with chapters that range from its growth in the US and impact on labor relations here to its fortunes overseas. How Wal-Mart manages this transition in the near future will play a significant role in the determining the character of the global economy. Wal-Mart World's impressively broad scope makes it necessary reading for anyone interested in the global impact of this economic colossus.

Edited by one of the nation’s preeminent labor historians, this book marks an ambitious effort to dissect the full extent of Wal-Mart’s business operations, its social effects, and its role in the U.S. and world economy. Wal-Mart is based on a spring 2004 conference of leading historians, business analysts, sociologists, and labor leaders that immediately attracted the attention of the national media, drawing profiles in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the New York Review of Books. Their contributions are adapted here for a general audience. At the end of the nineteenth century the Pennsylvania Railroad declared itself “the standard of the world.” In more recent years, IBM and then Microsoft seemed the template for a new, global information economy. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, Wal-Mart has overtaken all rivals as the world-transforming economic institution of our time. Presented in an accessible format and extensively illustrated with charts and graphs, Wal-Mart examines such topics as the giant retailer’s managerial culture, revolutionary use of technological innovation, and controversial pay and promotional practices to provide the most complete guide yet available to America’s largest company.

This book demonstrates the usefulness of anthropological concepts by taking a critical look at Wal-Mart and the American Dream. Rather than singling Wal-Mart out for criticism, the authors treat it as a product of a socio-political order that it also helps to shape. The book attributes Wal-Mart’s success to the failure of American (and global) society to make the Dream available to everyone. It shows how decades of neoliberal economic policies have exposed contradictions at the heart of the Dream, creating an opening for Wal-Mart. The company’s success has generated a host of negative externalities, however, fueling popular ambivalence and organized opposition. The book also describes the strategies that Wal-Mart uses to maintain legitimacy, fend off unions, enter new markets, and cultivate an aura of benevolence and ordinariness, despite these externalities. It focuses on Wal-Mart’s efforts to forge symbolic and affective inclusion, and their self-promotion as a free market solution to social problems of poverty, inequality, and environmental destruction. Finally, the book contrasts the conceptions of freedom and human rights that underlie Wal-Mart’s business model to the alternative visions of freedom forwarded by their critics.

Extensively revised and expanded with the most up-to-the-minute data, this new edition of the Field Guide to the U.S. Economy brings key economic issues to life, reflecting the collective wit and wisdom of the many progressive economists affiliated with the Center for Popular Economics. User-friendly and accessible, the book covers a wide range of subjects, including workers, women, people of color, government spending, welfare, education, health, the environment, macroeconomics, and the global economy, as well as brand-new material on the war in Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security, the prison-industrial complex, foreign aid, the environment, and pharmaceutical companies.

Proceedings of the New York University 56th Annual Conference on Labor

Author: David Sherwyn

Publisher: Kluwer Law International

ISBN: 9789041125057

Category: Law

Page: 1149

View: 3104

Long regarded as a powerful means to seek individual damages against a corporate defendant, class actions have become a staple of the U.S. litigation system. In recent years, however, several highly significant Supreme Court decisions have weakened the commonality claims of defendants, particularly in workplace discrimination actions. In light of this background, the trends and prospects of employment class actions were the theme of the 56th annual proceedings of the prestigious New York University Conference on Labor, held in May 2003. This important volume reprints the papers presented at that conference, as well as some additional contributions. Among the considerable expertise brought to bear on this controversial subject, readers will find insightful analysis of such issues as the following: Effect of class actions on losing companies; Importance of class actions to Title VII enforcement; Obstacles to class litigation; Compliance and internal enforcement challenges for large employers; Opt-in vs. opt-out alternatives for class members; Value and effectiveness of pattern or practice test cases; Legal limits of group identity; Shifting of the burden of proof; Authority of arbitrators to proceed on a classwide basis; and Countering statistical claims of expert witnesses. Because class actions are based on tension - that between commonality and individuation - they tend to accumulate precedent along a spectrum from disconnected disparity to meaningful resolution. In this deeply informed and thought-provoking book, lawyers and academics concerned with both the interests of employers and of employees will proceed with increased awareness as they work on reconciling the practical and theoretical constraints of class litigation.

This book is a manifesto for anyone who's sick and tired of the twenty-first century's tidal wave of crapulence. Dating the renaissance of bullshit to wartime propaganda, Penny skewers the "corporate bafflegab," scripted, question-proof political events, toxic faux foodstuffs, and miracle pills that clutter our lives. She spares no one and nothing: not Wal-Mart, not Bush's White House, and not the vast pharmaceutical industry. Penny reveals that prisons are the hot new thing in call centers (the federal prison industry bills itself as "the best-kept secret in outsourcing") and that the Public Relations Society of America has a Code of Ethics Pledge. Finally, she demonstrates how our "all-you-can-eat buffet of phoniness" not only alienates us from each other but degrades public discourse, breeds apathy, and makes us just plain stupid.--From publisher description.

Over the last few years, while billions of pounds have lined the pockets of a small corporate elite, the vast majority of the world have lived through a period of falling wages, disappearing pensions and dwindling bank accounts - all of which has led to the personal debt crisis at the root of the latest financial meltdown. This 'audacity of greed' was legally blessed by the free market. Here, Tasini examines the reasons and exposes the people responsible for the looting of one of the world's largest economies - America.

Despite real progress, women remain rare enough in elite positions of power that their presence still evokes a sense of wonder. In Through the Labyrinth, Alice Eagly and Linda Carli examine why women's paths to power remain difficult to traverse. First, Eagly and Carli prove that the glass ceiling is no longer a useful metaphor and offer seven reasons why. They propose the labyrinth as a better image and explain how to navigate through it. This important and practical book addresses such critical questions as: How far have women actually come as leaders? Do stereotypes and prejudices still limit women's opportunities? Do people resist women's leadership more than men's? And, do organisations create obstacles to women who would be leaders?This book's rich analysis is founded on scientific research from psychology, economics, sociology, political science, and management. The authors ground their conclusions in that research and invoke a wealth of engaging anecdotes and personal accounts to illustrate the practical principles that emerge. With excellent leadership in short supply, no group, organisation, or nation can afford to restrict women's access to leadership roles. This book evaluates whether such restrictions are present and, when they are, what we can do to eliminate them.

Women in the Workplace: Which Women, Which Agenda? Michael Selmi, Professor of Law at George Washington University, presents his article on "Women in the Workplace: Which Women, Which Agenda." Professor Catherine Fisk provides commentary. This event is sponsored by Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy